Australia’s National Action Plan-need your help before next Wednesday
I’m encouraging you and your organisation to share information about your contribution or your thinking about priority issues that should be flagged as we head towards PM&C’s close off date for suggestions at the end of March.
There may be a hive of activity out there as Amelia Loye the consultant working with PM&C on engagement writes: https://ogpau.govspace.gov.au/engagement-update-11-march/and that’s a good thing. You may be one of those busy bees but…
There are 15 days until the end of the month-6 are weekends or public holidays.
We want to hear from you on what you regard as the high priorities for inclusion in the national action plan.
You may have already suggested an action(s) direct to PM&C, or plan to do so, that’s great.
http://ogpau.wikispaces.com/Commitments
Alternatively you can flag issues on the Network Forum or even better complete and post something using Kat Szuminska’s template
https://opengovernment.org.au/2016/02/24/how-to-make-an-ogp-national-action-plan-commitment/
There are many disparate voices but we want to get behind issues that have wide support from members and will be seeking to advocate for those commitments as the process moves on.
Some themes or commitments high on the list of Network members include (shorthand descriptions only):
1.3 Extend the list of information holdings that must be published pro-actively to include models used to simulate the effects of possible changes – in policies or other circumstances in which we find ourselves; contracts, grants, gift register, and senior management travel and expenses; and in the case of ministers ministerial support, interest declarations, gifts and appointments diary;
1.4 Require agencies to adopt and publish an open government plan to include data set holdings.
3.1 Develop and implement an anti-corruption plan that addresses among other issues the case for a national anti-corruption commission, improvements to foreign bribery rules and implemenation, best practice whistleblower protection in the public and private sectors, political donation and lobbying reforms.
4 Open Parliament
4.2 In conjunction with the Presiding officers of the Parliament develop a single searchable website and publish in searchable machine readable format in as close to real time as practicable full details of the use of entitlements and public funds by parliamentarians, gifts, declared pecuniary and other interests and political donations.
4.3 Endorse the Declaration on Parliamentary Openness.
Commit to implement the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI)
I can understand that other issues may take priority; we all only have limited time; there may be a degree of scepticism about the the prospects for the changes that some of you might wish; the suggestion that 5-15 commitments might end up in the plan is hardly encouraging; you like me and others are disappointed that apart from the PM’s letter the government at the highest level has done little to advertise the fact that it is committed to reforms across the open, transparent, accountable government/public participation spectrum or send a sign of serious intent such as withdrawal of the bill to abolish the OAIC, or show the slightest interest in public integrity issues; and that the absence of a formal mechanism that brings government and civil society together at various stages in what is billed as a partnership for co-creation of the plan means its a somewhat limited one sided partnership.